Danial:I had my issues with some other parts of the film, but the Twist was actually really well done, I just wish they'd developed Pierce a bit more, since he suffers from the same Green lantern "weak man gets power goes evil" BS.

You haven't paying attention to the movie have you? Pierce was weak yes but he didn't go evil because he got power, he went evil because of tony stark. He even said it himself, that it was desperation, it was when tony stark blew him off and send him to the roof top to wait (and ignored) that he realized how fucked up and unfair the world is. He even thought of jumping off but instead went and blew shit up! AND GET PAID FOR IT! And I loved it!!

It wasn't bullshit at all and it was very well done. It is something alot of us working class(especially salesman) and dreamers can relate to. Pierce was a very well done character.

I'm going to have to disagree with you there. The Mandarin is a caricature, but of old 60's Chinese stereotypes. The very idea that the could-have-been Mandarin would be in any way, shape or form commentary towards China now is quote silly. The Mandarin wasn't Chinese in any stretch of the imagination. He was just another Dark Knight Joker who I'm quite frankly sick of as a villain.

You see, the movie Mandarin, isn't some grand interesting villain. He's just another evil for EVIL ANARCHIST sakes villain. And I'm glad the movie shows us just how rediculous such a character is. Who could possibly follow such a madman? No one! It's all just a front man.

[Spoiler Warning of a sort continues]

Then you apparently do not know "The Mandarin". Basically what The Mandarin is, is the Chinese version of Hitler, out to see Asia dominate the world. He's kind of like Captain America to racist chinese ideals and militarism, which is why he's "The Mandarin". In a lot of respects doing what Fu Manchu was up to, though being a super villain he wasn't quite as subtle as Fu Manchu was at times.

Back during the whole "Majripoor" arc in the 1990s you had this bit with Wolverine and Jubilee running into him. The last "free" members of the X-men if I remember, the rest having been overcome by the mechnitions of Cameron Hodge (then a head reanimated by mephisto's magic and placed on a giant cyborg body if I remember). They wind up escaping him largely because he winds up trying to recruit Jubilee because she's ethnically Chinese. Around this same basic time period he was running an alliance with "The Hand" and they kidnapped Psylocke and brain washed her, physically turning her into an Asian because The Mandarin couldn't stand having a caucasian minion even via The Hand alliance (The Hand was a bit less racist, but a natural ally).

First off, comic book's Mandarin and movie's Mandarin are two different people. Even in the previews, he was radically different from the comic Mandarin where any comparison like that is laughable at best.

While at one time there was a bit of racism inherant in this, largely having to do with the communist takeover of China, it wasn't paticularly relevent because as a whole China wasn't really doing much to anyone, and was actually an ally of a sort against Russia despite similar philsophies. However recently that has changed, the chinese who are incredibly xenophobic, especially nowadays, are building up a huge, offensive military force, and developing technologies they hope will force a conventional war, while engaging in cyber-espionage (along with the old fashioned kind) against nations like the US. They are also rattling their sabers about colonizing other nations by force, and gaining revent against the western world for the "trivialization of their culture" and not bowing down to whom should be the true masters of the world. This propaganda is in part how China's elite, the well educated people who live in some of the largest and most modern cities in the world, keep their slaves who work in the sweatshops, and live alongside their own livestock (which is how SARS got started) in line. It's a lot like what you saw with the USSR. It might be something that could be ignored, if China wasn't actually trying to develop this technology, and actually building a navy capable of projecting it's huge military into other countries. When a nation like China wants an offensive weapon like an Aircraft Carrier, you have to wonder who they are planning on attacking with it, that's not a defensive weapon.

Right now we seem to mostly be burying our heads in the sand when it comes to China, and trying to pretend they aren't a problem. We're worrying about being offensive and antagonistic, when really we should be both of those things to an increased degree in response to their own behavior. Seeing vilains representing the belligerance of China, rather than trying to dance around the subject for the purposes of political correctness is not a good idea.

See, 20-30 years ago, when some of those vintage Iron Man comics were written, I might actually kind of agree with you or Bob about what The Mandarin represents. Today on the other hand I feel he's a bit more relevent than he was then.

For the record though, the idea of the "face" of the Mandarin in the movie being laugable in it's agenda is kind of a nice piece of liberal propaganda in of itself. You say that you couldn't see his actual "motive" making sense when there is nothing else behind it, yet to be honest that's exactly the kind of behavior real terrorists engage in, and is part of any real war as part of psychological warfare. They made the guy seem more sypathetic to The Middle East than anything that should be called "The Mandarin" (got knows why they even used the name with this version), but at the end of the day his reasons for apparently blowing stuff up, were pretty much the same reasons as Al Queda... to hurt the US, force compromises, and scare the people, while making the US seem weak and ineffective.

This however, I take personal offense too. I...I cannot actually word how this enrages me. You actually think that China is preparing for war? You actually believe that China is akin to Al Queda or worse! You honestly believe that the Chinese are some cartoon evil organization with no base for reality? That you can lump all of China's history, culture, politics into some insane anarachist terrorist (which DON'T exist in the real world becuase, news flash, no one thinks they are evil or does thinks for the sake of evil)? Well, as someone of Chinese decent, as someone who is applying for Chinese-American dual citizenship (American first before you get some stupid idea), as someone who shares friends that are Chinese (in either nationality or race)...FUCK YOU!

Now more than ever am I glad that the twist happened. You want to know why? The type of terrorist the Mandarin was building up to doesn't exist in real life. That version of the terrorist only exist in paranoid fantasies of madmen! No one would follow such an man in real life WITHOUT CAUSE! Pray tell, what is the purpose of the Mandarin? Not after the twist, before. Some madman who wants to destroy American ideals because he is evil. And YOU have the gall to suggest that this is what China wants? When did you become such a god on all matters Chinese?

I love the Big Picture no matter the topic, and your movie reviews are good even when I don't agree with your opinion, but when you talk about comics (and the things based on them) you really shine. That may just come from my love of comic books and everything about them, but your comic book themed Big Pictures are my favorites.

Maybe I'm sick of the terrorist hype(and having been influenced by the shit ton of security measures that were suddenly enforced all over the world as well as my job), but the Osama version of the Mandarin did not sit well with me.I won't pretend to be an Iron Man fan or even a Marvel fan, I just remember the guy from cartoons I saw as a kid and it was fairly clear what Mandarin was all about. At least something that didn't happen in this movie, so when the twist came I gave up on the movie. The rest was just CG and special effects to make up for the rest of the movie where we saw Tony trudge around without a suit.

I'm surprised so many liked the twist or thought it was clever. I assumed from the beginning that it would ultimately come down to Killian and not the Mandarin which was just a tease at something that in my opinion would've made a more entertaining movie.

I specifically went to see something strange and crazy, especially after Avengers, but ended up seeing another suit being the bad guy, something that I could see in any other action thriller or Bond movie. It's not a far jump from magic rings to a half-hearted attempt at making "realistic" magic in the form of genemanipulation. Should've stuck with the rings. Yup.

I could go either way on the Mandarin. I'm glad they went the direction they did with him though, which acknowledges the role of such racial caricatures in society, and it was really well done. On the other hand I think they missed out on an opportunity to capitalize on a modern "yellow peril" thing. I mean what better time than now, what with China growing economically, and now with this hacker business to play on some of those fears. Of course you wouldn't have a Fu Manchu, you'd modernize it: businessman who's maneuvering against Stark Industries on the surface while maybe dabbling in a few less than acceptable ventures. In my head I even imagined a whole thing where Tony would try to flaunt himself by speaking Cantonese or something and the guy would respond I only know Mandarin to keep with the name dropping of their comic book names instead of outright stating them (Iron Monger, Warmachine, etc).

Also while bob acknowledges that the Marvel universe has a lot of the "chessmaster" type villains, since Dr. Doom is still with Fox, there's a void that the Mandarin could fill, and you'd give each of the main three a big villain for a possible villain team up (Red Skull, Loki, and... Justin Hammer? Just doesn't seem right).

unacomn:Am I the only one that saw Killian more as Fin Fang Fum? The fire breathing, the dragon tattoos, the him "making" the Mandarin. (because his rings were from Fin Fang Fum's crashed ship)

It's my understanding that fire breathing is a power of Extremis in the comics, but yeah you still have the dragon tattoos.

I genuinely thought of this as well; they can have their cake and eat it if they then have Kingsley's character become the actual Mandarin. Or, heck, even have someone inspired by him and become a copycat terrorist, only for real this time. They've done it in such a way that they could create a great and genuinely interesting twist, but at the same time not weld the door shut.

I kind of saw the possibility of the Mandarin being just a spokesperson to the real villain from how the movie was advertise, and in some ways its good that they push this idea to its logical extreme -even if it kind trashes the current attempts to improve this villain in the comics from its original stereotype target. There is a meta-logic to the whole thing.

However, what I wanted to see going into this movie was for the Mandarin to be a spokes person, but also have been one of Killian's brain trust geniuses, who was using Killian as much as he was being used as being the scapegoat for the attacks. With this setup, you could actually have the Mandarin eventually reveal he had been hiding the alien tech he has studied, and had just been working with Killian to steal the perfected Extremis formula. They could have pulled that off even with the funny twist, with one good magic blast to escape from Iron Man. I wish it was just implied.

Oh well, there could always be some genius kung fu guy studying alien tech, who saw all these terrorist videos. Maybe they would be inspired to take on the image, especially if they want to annoy Tony Stark. We could still see the real deal some day, and this explanation for the image actually fits the reason for the imagine in the comics perfectly.

unacomn:Am I the only one that saw Killian more as Fin Fang Fum? The fire breathing, the dragon tattoos, the him "making" the Mandarin. (because his rings were from Fin Fang Fum's crashed ship)

No, there was another guy at the AV Club spoiler section for Iron Man 3 who thought the same thing. Had to break the news to him that fire-breathing is part of the canon powerset of Extremis, as per Warren Ellis' book.

Given the Avengers ending stinger and the knowledge that a Guardians of the Galaxy movie is coming down the line I was really expecting more from The Mandarin. Specifically that one or more of his rings were going to be revealed to be Infinity gems.

Imagine my surprise when I couldn't have been more wrong if it was wrong o'clock on the feast of St. Wrongsworth.

On the topic at hand though...I actually like the twist quite a bit. Not so much the Trevor character, I can take or leave him, but more the idea that The Mandarin doesn't exist. Or more to the point that The Mandarin was an image created to prey on the Xenophobic fears of a post 9-11 America.

I like it because every conversation I had about this movie prior to it's release could be boiled down to "How the fuck are you going to update the Mandarin? He's a racist cartoon character meant to prey on the Xenopobic fears of a cold war era America. And you can't just swap him out to turn him into Osama Bin Mandarin and expect that to go over well either."

So their ultimate decision to go balls out and just out the character by defining him as exactly what he is was a bold move that I think paid off really well.

My view- the mandarin is real, Killian admitting that he is the real mandarin is just another scapegoat. He's out there somewhere. And he is watching, and waiting, and you will never see him coming.

Also, Killian as a villain was rather dull in my mind. There's no grandeur, no sense of "Oh wow." I want a magneto to my professor xavier, a Horus to my emperor. Instead I get a lab technician who's on fire. Brilliant. With the exception of Loki, I have this issue with all the Marvel villains so far. Even the red skull.

aba1:I actually prefer the realism and I hate when comics just drop all pretense of any kinda good story just to do something that will sell.

What?

Wait...

What?

So, in your mind, a story won't be good if they deviate from realism?

This isn't to be a dick, I just don't understand the logic behind what you just said. Please explain this.

Again didn't say that I said I prefer realism or at least the more realistic takes on things and then in a related but separate note that I hate when comics will drop all pretense of logical progression to create something illogical because it will sell more.

You combined my two thoughts into one.

Thanks for clarifying that but the combination was not my doing but your sentence structure. You have absolutely no segue between the two thoughts - you just say you prefer realism then immediately follow it up with saying you hate it when comics drop all pretense of any kinda good story. Since I have nothing further to read from than that, it carries the implication that you were saying that deviating from realism is dropping said pretense.

The only thing I really had with the twist was that I did see it coming before the rest of the audience. Drop one hint that Killian and the Mandarin were in it together and all ideas that Mandarin was in charge went out the window. In hindsight, it should have been obvious. As you said, Iron Man's rogues list is a joke, and Even Mandarin wasn't that serious a villain until the late 90s, until then his largest claim to fame had involved Psylocke from the X-Men. Iron Man's true worst enemies lists (at least since the armor wars) would be topped by the Justin Hammers, the Roxons, and other businessmen that put lives beneath profits, so the bait and switch might be a low blow, but given the political climate, I really have no issues with a cheap metaphoric shot that the military industrial complex and its need for a boogeyman to keep us buyins everything form fighter jets to private arsenals.

I don't see a serious Mandarin as something to look forward to, unless the Avengers wants to go the Masters of Evil route. Granted, given some of the larger ideas I've had with the Infinity Gems for Thanos, there is something to work with there.

I actually kinda liked the twist. Though I'm kinda sick of the "villain-isn't-the-villain-at-all" trope and EVIL BUSINESSMEN MAKING WAAAAAR, I oddly liked it. It was absurd. I mean, plenty of people guessed it *coughbullshitcough* but I didn't really expect THAT.

And At first I figured, "Tony found a decoy whose making porno of the Mandarin, didn't he?" But nope, this guy's the Mandarin! I especially like the scene where Rodey finds out because it looks like he's going to cry for a few seconds. But then things got kinda meh...they really underused the Extremis plot-line and Tony's new armor. Especially Tony's armor.

I thought when Tony's armor sent him to Tennessee without his permission and when he was sitting next to it or talking about Iron Man as if the suit was a literal person; I figured they were foreshadowing that the suit was a bit more than a suit. I thought back to the trailers with Tony's suit flying in, and it suddenly seemed more badass. But nope, regular ole suit. He rarely uses it...or shows it off...actually, it's damaged for a good chunk of the movie.

Also, Extremis could've been better. When the henchman survives the explosions, it made you think "wow, this stuff is badass!" But nope, just melty people. Seriously, Extremis could've been done so much better and really didn't need to be watered down like this. Super strength? Sure. Enhanced regeneration? Go for it. Hell, even a few more outlandish things could've worked, but I don't think melty people do. Could've tied in some super soldier stuff if they wanted too.

Overall, a lot of the main selling point of this movie were oddly undersold. It's an alright movie, but most Hollywood movies are "all right."

I just came back from the movie, and I went there knowing there was a big twist.

When I left the movie, I was left wondering what the twist was. I'm starting to know too much about writing stories. :(

The way Killian was introduced in the flashback clearly identified him as a big deal. When he came to Stark Industries all fit and suave, with a suspicious henchman, I immediately realized this was the main antagonist. To make a good antagonist, a writer needs to make it personal between the antagonist and protagonist. When it showed Killian arriving, smirking after Potts, it rang that little bell. The link between Killian's henchman and the terrorists attack sealed the deal for me, so the big twist wasn't really a surprise to me, so much so I was expecting something utterly different. One does not waste that much time developing the second in command to the antagonist.

The Mandarin was too detached, too different and out there to strike me as the primary antagonist. I admit I was not expecting him to be a drunken druggie however, so I guess they got me there?

Thanks for the spoiler warning, I clicked the Big Picture link without reading the description, then you said stop and go see iron man 3, so i did and now im back i more or less agree to what you are saying. The only thing in the entire movie that kept breaking me out of it was the fact that the iron man suits would melt but hardly any clothes were burned.

I was quite impressed that they actually went ahead and did this. It is rare that we even get a twist like this nowadays and rarer still that it wasn't on ANY of the trailers or promotional material. I guess that they did this so that going into the movie we would be seeing things as the people in the movie itself are seeing things and that is AWESOME!

considering the inherent "goofyness" of the comic mandarin, i think what they did with the character in this movie was a good call. While the Twist was telegraphed miles ahead (yeah... another defense contractor suddenly appears in the movie, gosh i wonder if he might be evil...).

LysanderNemoinis:Well, I suppose I'm the only one who figured out the big twist right away. The moment I heard "defense contractor" and saw a rich white guy in a suit, my friend and I just left because we immediately knew how it was going to end. I mean...how else would it? Like Bob said, "The Mandarin" was a perfect amalgamation of real-world actually dangerous people and ideologies, so how on Earth could he be the villain? And Bob of all people being surprised that Guy Pierce's character was the bad guy? Have you watched any movies or played any games in the last eight years before today?

TheNaut131:I actually kinda liked the twist. Though I'm kinda sick of the "villain-isn't-the-villain-at-all" trope and EVIL BUSINESSMEN MAKING WAAAAAR, I oddly liked it. It was absurd. I mean, plenty of people guessed it *coughbullshitcough* but I didn't really expect THAT.

Credossuck:considering the inherent "goofyness" of the comic mandarin, i think what they did with the character in this movie was a good call. While the Twist was telegraphed miles ahead (yeah... another defense contractor suddenly appears in the movie, gosh i wonder if he might be evil...).

LysanderNemoinis:Well, I suppose I'm the only one who figured out the big twist right away. The moment I heard "defense contractor" and saw a rich white guy in a suit, my friend and I just left because we immediately knew how it was going to end. I mean...how else would it? Like Bob said, "The Mandarin" was a perfect amalgamation of real-world actually dangerous people and ideologies, so how on Earth could he be the villain? And Bob of all people being surprised that Guy Pierce's character was the bad guy? Have you watched any movies or played any games in the last eight years before today?

TheNaut131:I actually kinda liked the twist. Though I'm kinda sick of the "villain-isn't-the-villain-at-all" trope and EVIL BUSINESSMEN MAKING WAAAAAR, I oddly liked it. It was absurd. I mean, plenty of people guessed it *coughbullshitcough* but I didn't really expect THAT.

Credossuck:considering the inherent "goofyness" of the comic mandarin, i think what they did with the character in this movie was a good call. While the Twist was telegraphed miles ahead (yeah... another defense contractor suddenly appears in the movie, gosh i wonder if he might be evil...).

So... None of you expected a rich white villain in an Iron Man movie?

Obadiah was white and rich, Justin Hammer was white and rich, vankov was white and rich in bodily odours i presume.

So yes. Seeing another white and rich guy prattle about in an iron man movie gave it away.

Trinab:I just came back from the movie, and I went there knowing there was a big twist.

When I left the movie, I was left wondering what the twist was. I'm starting to know too much about writing stories. :(

The way Killian was introduced in the flashback clearly identified him as a big deal. When he came to Stark Industries all fit and suave, with a suspicious henchman, I immediately realized this was the main antagonist. To make a good antagonist, a writer needs to make it personal between the antagonist and protagonist. When it showed Killian arriving, smirking after Potts, it rang that little bell. The link between Killian's henchman and the terrorists attack sealed the deal for me, so the big twist wasn't really a surprise to me, so much so I was expecting something utterly different. One does not waste that much time developing the second in command to the antagonist.

The Mandarin was too detached, too different and out there to strike me as the primary antagonist. I admit I was not expecting him to be a drunken druggie however, so I guess they got me there?

After IM2, the balance of antagonist did surprise me. Of course Killian was going to be *an* antagonist, but I figured him to be on some level subservient to the Mandarin, after the whole Vankov / Hammer dynamic. Maybe I'm just too simple minded...